Barangay Ginebra goes back to the drawing board following a 94-101 loss to the TNT Tropang 5G in Game 2 of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Season 50 Commissioner’s Cup best-of-seven finals series last Friday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Kings head coach Tim Cone said that while missed calls from the referees played a part in their loss, he cited their slow start in the first half after tallying only three assists.
“I usually don’t complain about referees after a game. That’s one thing I don’t know if I did. But tonight, I just felt the crew was not a good crew. And they got to have a better crew the next time out,” Cone said.
“But that came down to the fact that we just didn’t show up tonight and at the beginning of the game, we had three assists in the first and zero assists in the second quarter. That’s not us.”
With the best-of-seven championship series now knotted at 1-1, Ginebra will have to lean on its strengths to pull off a massive Game 3 victory on Sunday at the Mall of Asia Arena.
The Kings’ bench players outpaced those of the Tropang 5G, 40-17, with Jeremiah Gray leading the pack with 13 points. The Kings also bullied their way inside the paint, 50-32, while scoring 11 second-chance points.
RJ Abarrientos said the loss is not a cause for them to press the panic button as he expects a grueling war between both sides.
“It’s a long series, so we have a lot of time to adjust. We had a bad start, so we lost our momentum. That’s why we ended up struggling early,” said Abarrientos, who sustained his hot performance in the finals with 21 points in Game 2.
